IT HAD been two weeks since Walt had spoken to Skip at all. He was worried now, convinced something was terribly wrong. He’d tried to speak to Skip a few times at the stadium, but Skip had blown by him each time. He’d tried telephoning. In desperation, he’d even written a letter, albeit an ambiguously worded one he doubted Skip would or could read. Walt tried to piece together the last night they’d spent together, looking for where things had gone wrong, trying to figure out what he had done that had driven Skip away.
It was maddening not to be able to speak to Skip. Walt felt like some of the color had drifted out of his life. How could such a thing have happened? Walt wasn’t a man who let himself get tied down. He’d had regular sex partners before, men he spent time with, romantic attachments, but none who’d affected him the way Skip did. In Skip’s absence, he’d gone out the way he had before he met Skip, but it wasn’t the same. He worked and did some of the best writing of his life. He still credited Skip with being part of the Giants’ strategy for winning the pennant.
He left the newsroom and let himself feel some of the sadness he’d been keeping at bay ever since Skip had basically disappeared. It was so strange. Walt had really thought they had something.
He ran into Reinhold in the elevator. “Your carnation is looking a little droopy,” Reinhold said, pointing at Walt’s lapel.
Walt looked. Indeed, the petals were browning and wilting a bit. Then he realized it was the same yellow carnation he’d put there in the morning. “I suppose I forgot to change it.”
Reinhold laughed. “Really, Selby? In the four years I’ve known you, that is the one thing you do like clockwork every day. You never have a droopy flower on your lapel. The Dapper Dandy always looks impeccable.”
Walt bristled inwardly at the moniker and the teasing he was getting from Reinhold. Most days he could take it, he could even dish it out right back, but today he was not in the mood. He rubbed his forehead. “Guess I had a rough day.”
“Giants lose a whopper?”
“They won today, actually.” But Skip hadn’t talked to him after the game. Again.
“Well, gosh, Walt. Did your mother die? Why the long face?”
“It’s nothing.”
He was saved from having to explain by the elevator opening. He gave a little wave and then hurried through the lobby and plunged into the Times Square traffic, leaving Reinhold behind.
Walt’s apartment seemed especially empty when he got home. It looked sad, monochromatic, disappointing. Walt halfheartedly tidied it, but then gave up. He walked over to his bookcase and took a few books off it, hoping for a distraction. He had a copy of Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned, which he tried reading for a while, but he couldn’t focus. He kept thinking about Skip and wondering what had gone wrong.
And then there was a knock at the door.
Walt had hope but low expectations as he went to the door, guessing his visitor was likely one of his neighbors needing something—money or a cup of sugar or whatever fool thing one of them could pester him about. He opened the door to Skip.
Skip looked bereft. His hair was mussed, he had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked even rougher than he had at the end of that day’s game. The first thing he did was put his arms around Walt and hug him tight.
When Walt heard the gasp of someone who was about to start sobbing, he pulled Skip into the apartment and kicked the door closed.
“Oh, Skip. Oh, baby, I missed you,” Walt murmured. “Where have you been?”
“Give me a minute,” Skip said, his face pressed into Walt’s shoulder. “Just let me hold you for a minute.”
Walt held Skip right back, hugging him tightly and memorizing the moment: Skip’s smell, the warmth of his body, the way he fit against Walt, the sounds he made. This felt fleeting, like Skip might be a figment of Walt’s imagination, destined to disappear again quickly and leave Walt with empty arms.
Eventually, Skip pulled away and said, “I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to talk to you. I still don’t know what to say, but I had to see you. I couldn’t stay away any longer.”
“What happened?”
Skip began to pace. “Giants management said I can’t be seen with you anymore because they know you’re… well, you know what you are. I could lose my job if they catch me with you again, if we continue to draw attention to ourselves. They’re making me choose, Walt. I have to choose between you and baseball.”
Walt understood instantly. “They talked to you two weeks ago?”
Skip nodded.
“Oh, baby.” Walt reached for him.
Skip stepped back. “John McGraw and the lawyers, they don’t know what a sacrifice they’re asking me to make. What they see when they look at me is a young, inexperienced boob who is new to the city and doesn’t know the ways of the world. They see the kid they think I am being led astray by a man they don’t approve of. They don’t know the real truth, and I can’t tell them. But I can’t make this choice. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for two weeks, and I just can’t decide. I can’t give up baseball, but I can’t lose you, either.”
“What exactly did they tell you?”
“I can’t be seen with you.” Skip began to pace. “They threatened me with my job if I continued to spend time with you in public. Said I couldn’t get any bad attention, especially not with the way the Yankees are playing. John McGraw wants us to win another World Series and thinks I could cause problems if the press says bad things about me.” He stopped moving and looked at Walt. “He called you a fag.”
“I suppose that’s not a secret.”
Skip gaped at Walt. “It doesn’t bother you that everybody knows?”
“It bothers me that people condemn us. My behavior has never hurt anybody.”
Skip resumed pacing. “What can I do, Walt? Is there something I don’t see?”
Walt gestured toward his sofa as a method of stalling while he thought about it. He waited for Skip to sit before he sat as well. He knew he couldn’t make Skip give up baseball for his sake. It was not only unfair to Skip, it was unfair to the game. How could Walt presume to pull a player in his prime from the sport? On the other hand, he’d been miserable these past two weeks without Skip. How had this man burrowed his way into Walt’s heart so quickly?
Well, the question didn’t matter much now. The damage was done and Walt’s heart was aching, not just with the potential for what he might lose, but for the decision Skip had been struggling to make.
Walt folded his hands in his lap, unwilling to touch Skip just yet in case he was unable to stop. “I’ve been covering sports in New York for six years, and I can tell you this: unless your name is Babe Ruth, nobody cares about you during the off-season. There are other sports for reporters to care about. More to the point, a lot of players leave town over the winter.”
“All right. I don’t see what that—”
“What we need is a temporary solution. So we aren’t seen together during the rest of the baseball season. That doesn’t mean we can’t see each other. You’re here now, aren’t you?”
“I can’t ask you to stop going out. I know you love your nightlife. The booze and jazz and everything.”
And Walt would have given it all up in a heartbeat if that was what he had to do to keep Skip.
That was his first thought, anyway, although the longer it sat there, the more he wondered how true it was. Could he give up his life as he’d become accustomed to it? Would leaving the speakeasies and Times Square behind make him resent Skip?
He wasn’t convinced that was the real solution, however.
“I do love to go out at night,” Walt said. “I will continue to do so. I’m not sure for how long. Maybe a day will come when I’ll want to give it up or settle down. But for now, I want to live my life as out in the open as I can. I want to see things and be seen; I want to experience everything the city has to offer.” He took a deep breath, feeling like this had gotten a little bit small, that liquor and music were wonderful things, but not essential. What was all that without love, without companionship, without that one person who made you feel complete and alive?
Was that how he felt about Skip?
He wasn’t prepared to analyze his feelings that closely. He cared for Skip, but was he willing to make significant changes to his life for the man? He said, “Maybe, just for now, for the next six weeks of the regular baseball season, the two of us only spend time together in private spaces. I don’t have to be out in a club or speakeasy to enjoy your company.”
Skip scrubbed his face with his hands. “All right. What happens when the season ends? What happens next season?”
Walt was glad Skip wasn’t looking at him, because he couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “You think we’ll be together that long?”
Skip turned his head, looking at Walt out of the corner of one eye, a little smile on his face. “Well… yes.”
Walt’s heart seized for a moment. He couldn’t begin to guess what was happening here, but he liked it. He smiled back. “So, we take things one day at a time. It’s not going to be easy, but there has to be a way.”
Skip lunged across the space between them and landed a rough kiss on Walt’s lips. Walt put his arms around Skip and held him, though his head still swam with the situation he’d been placed in. There was something about Skip, something Walt wasn’t ready to let go of just yet, and he was thrilled that Skip saw them together for the foreseeable future. But this dilemma they’d been pushed into was troubling: Keep their lives as they knew them or choose each other?
He stroked Skip’s hair. “I wish you had talked to me sooner. Maybe I could have helped.”
“I wanted to work it out for myself.” Skip’s voice was thick with emotion. “I thought I could figure something out or make a decision. I wanted to decide what was more important before I spoke to you, if it was you or baseball, but I couldn’t decide. I’m just so…. I’m too stu—”
Walt put his fingers on Skip’s lips. “Don’t say stupid. You are not stupid. This is an incredibly difficult decision. I still can’t help you make it. All I can do is offer comfort. And that’s all I meant. You could have come to me and I would have listened and talked it out with you. That’s all.”
Skip let out a breath and leaned his head on Walt’s shoulder. “I wanted to decide something so you’d think I’m smart.”
“I do think you’re smart. I told you, you’re a goddamn genius.”
“What are we going to do, Walt? I don’t know what to do.”
Walt just held him. “We’ll figure it out.”